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Dear ultima ratio,

"A pet poodle is easily taught. Human beings need cogent reasons to believe in what they are told. Even popes are obliged to explain and appeal to the minds of the faithful. Slaves don't, of course, need reasons. --They just obey, blindly, for fear of the master's whip."

Yes, yes, we "neo-Catholics" just keep it up with the insults. Ultima and his friends would never think to, say, compare us to dogs.

LOL.

You just keep talkin', ultima. You just keep providing more and more evidence of how your mindset has become Protestant.

"As I pointed out before, docility is generally confused with subservience. (We tend to forget that ihe word 'docile' is derived from the Latin root which means to teach or be taught.) A person is wrongly thought to be docile if he is passive and pliable. On the contrary, docility is the extremely active virtue of being teachable. No one is really teachable who does not freely exercise his power of independent judgment. The most docile reader is, therefore, the most critical. He is the reader who finally responds to a book by the greatest effort to make up his own mind on the matters the author has discussed.

"I say 'finally' because docility requires that a teacher be fully heard and, more than that, understood, before he is judged. I should add also that sheer amount of effort is not an adequate criterion of docility. The reader must know how to judge a book, just as he must know how to arrive at an understanding of its contents."

- Morton Adler, "HOW TO READ A BOOK: A Guide to Reading the Great Books"

Real Catholics are docile, ultima. With the free exercise of our power of judgement, we willingly submit to the teaching authority of Christ's Church. Not blindly, but with eyes open. Not out of fear, but out of love, grateful for the Pearl of Great Price that we have found.

It's sad that you don't seem to understand this.

sitetest

***Morton Adler, "HOW TO READ A BOOK: A Guide to Reading the Great Books"***

An outstanding book, highly recommended. Dr. Howard Hendricks at Dallas Seminary required this as reading for his Bible Study Methods course.

To confuse your blind obedience to an exercise of judgment is ludicrous. Was the Pope right to kiss the Koran? Answer yes or no. Paralyzed? I can see why. You are caught between slavish devotion and common sense. Of course he was wrong to kiss a book that blasphemes the Holy Trinity. I can see this clearly because I put the faith before the Pope. You can't, because you do the opposite.

<> Our lil' "study group" in Maine used to wonder about Adler. Over time, he moved ever closer to "Poping." I think I recall he became an Episcopalian, did he ever, as rumours had it, "Pope?"